Weakest of the series
Reposted from my site:
Once again cutting close to the mark, Telltale has released the latest episode for Back to the Future The Game and all I have to say is, "What the hell?" Up until now, the game has been a fun, time travelling romp as Marty is now being forced to contend with the consequences of his actions. In the previous episode, "Citizen Brown," the stakes were significantly raised as Marty confronts an Emmett Brown who is under the puritanical sway of Edna Strickland. Worst of all, the time machine was wrecked, causing Marty to be stuck in an alternate 1986.
In this episode, it feels like the narrative is showing signs of giving in to it's weight.
The game begins with Marty awaking to find himself within the Hill Valley Courthouse, the latest entrant of Emmett's Citizen Plus brainwashing program. After breaking free with the help of Jennifer (who is rushed off the set as quickly as she is brought in), Marty and a newly enlightened Doc Brown devise a plan to go back to the year 1931 and stop young Emmett from dating Edna Strickland and see the film "Frankenstein," a movie that would inspire him to fully embrace science. At this point, the script just gets absolutely lazy. For some reason, Doc informs Marty that he is not allowed to help rebuild the time machine, as any trace of his aid detected by his younger self would cause a time paradox.
Wait, what?
Look, I know this time travel, a realistically impossible concept but come on - how does that make any sense. How will something that has been repaired by my future self cause a paradox especially since I, technically, won't know that I did it. Maybe if I left a note saying, "Hey, Allen. I, future Allen, rebuilt this vase that you'll drop in five minutes," but how is that going to be a paradox? The game's explanation of this feels like some cheap, lazy way to get Marty and alternate 1986 Doc into the story proper. From there, the story, thankfully, it gets better because havinge a Doc from an alternate timeline interact with his past in the correct time stream is a unique situation.
The episode isn't all bad. There's a great, poignant scene involving Marty and young Emmett atop the clock tower and the concept of Alternate Doc involving himself with a different time stream is intriguing because it threatens to unravel everything. I may not agree with the direction it seems to be going, but I can't say for sure since the teaser for the final episode was brief.
The other gripe I have with the episode is that it seems like it was rushed out the gate. I had no problems running the last three episodes on my computer, but there were two instances here that the game had some trouble running. During the escape sequence at the start of the game, the frame rate flipped out, causing everything to get choppy. During the teaser for the final episode, the screen flickered like crazy and game models lost their textures (everyone looked pitch black). It can't be my computer, since I updated my drivers yesterday (I had to in order to run Crysis 2).
With only one episode left to go, let's hope it makes up for how relatively wak this one was.
In this episode, it feels like the narrative is showing signs of giving in to it's weight.
The game begins with Marty awaking to find himself within the Hill Valley Courthouse, the latest entrant of Emmett's Citizen Plus brainwashing program. After breaking free with the help of Jennifer (who is rushed off the set as quickly as she is brought in), Marty and a newly enlightened Doc Brown devise a plan to go back to the year 1931 and stop young Emmett from dating Edna Strickland and see the film "Frankenstein," a movie that would inspire him to fully embrace science. At this point, the script just gets absolutely lazy. For some reason, Doc informs Marty that he is not allowed to help rebuild the time machine, as any trace of his aid detected by his younger self would cause a time paradox.
Wait, what?
Look, I know this time travel, a realistically impossible concept but come on - how does that make any sense. How will something that has been repaired by my future self cause a paradox especially since I, technically, won't know that I did it. Maybe if I left a note saying, "Hey, Allen. I, future Allen, rebuilt this vase that you'll drop in five minutes," but how is that going to be a paradox? The game's explanation of this feels like some cheap, lazy way to get Marty and alternate 1986 Doc into the story proper. From there, the story, thankfully, it gets better because havinge a Doc from an alternate timeline interact with his past in the correct time stream is a unique situation.
The episode isn't all bad. There's a great, poignant scene involving Marty and young Emmett atop the clock tower and the concept of Alternate Doc involving himself with a different time stream is intriguing because it threatens to unravel everything. I may not agree with the direction it seems to be going, but I can't say for sure since the teaser for the final episode was brief.
The other gripe I have with the episode is that it seems like it was rushed out the gate. I had no problems running the last three episodes on my computer, but there were two instances here that the game had some trouble running. During the escape sequence at the start of the game, the frame rate flipped out, causing everything to get choppy. During the teaser for the final episode, the screen flickered like crazy and game models lost their textures (everyone looked pitch black). It can't be my computer, since I updated my drivers yesterday (I had to in order to run Crysis 2).
With only one episode left to go, let's hope it makes up for how relatively wak this one was.